Liberty to Smile
by ScreamingInSilence
Summary: G1 series of one-shots of the daily happenin's of the mechs aboard the Ark. Two - Jazz
1. Ratchet

**Note:** Very few of these one-shots will be interrelated. Each are written in five to ten minutes and polished up for public viewin', minus spell-checkin'. Enjoy, and _please_ try to leave a review.

* * *

It had been quiet for the most part. The Decepticons had retreated earlier than usual to lick their wounds. Those in the medbay were recharging peacefully, the night patrol had left hours ago, Red Alert had eventually conceded his traditional after-battle place before Teletraan's monitors to Blaster, and Jazz had eventually convinced his mate to stop hovering over his gunner counterpart. 

With First Aid doing duty in the medbay, and the twin terrors knocked out for the night, Ratchet tried to kick-start his elusive relaxation pattern into first gear. However it just wouldn't come to him, and he knew why; someone was watching him. They had been for a while now. Ratchet had hoped they would get bored and wander off. He had no such luck.

Shaking his head in annoyance, the medic dumped his empty energon cube in the recycle unit before exiting the common room, intent on checking on his patients and ditching his follower before catching up on the ever-growing stack of files that needed signing. Passing down the large corridors of the _Ark_, paranoia kicked in, and he could have sworn a giggle just wafted from the shadows. He paused for a moment, turning around in an attempt to find the culprit.

No-one was there.

Had Ratchet been an ordinary medic he would have shaken his head and wandered off, certain that he was just overstressed. War had seen that habit quickly dropped in favour of checking over his shoulder struts at frequent intervals; living with the particular mechs aboard the _Ark_ had finely honed both that habit and his aim.

However, the wonts of separate mechs like over-the-strut glances were common knowledge amongst the crew, and Ratchet's prowler was no exception as the medic could find nothing out of the ordinary. An internal grumbling started up as he continued on his way, and many threats passed through his CPU, most involving old junk parts and well-placed wrenches.

The medbay doors slid silently open to admit him, and he stepped far enough into the room that the doors wouldn't clip him as they shut again. He stood there for a moment, silently watching in approval as his apprentice moved gently about the medbay, cleaning tools, moving scrap metal to the refuse chute for later use, checking each of the wounded. Leaving his occupied intern to his job, Ratchet swiftly crossed to his office, letting the door whisk shut behind him. Sighing, he rested his helm back against the door.

It never got easier to put those hooligans back together once they had gotten their body parts blown up or off. He was thankful that, so far, getting themselves blown up was the worse they had done, unless one counted Wheeljack blowing himself up. Still, Ratchet couldn't help but show a furious or blank face to his crew mates when retreating to his office to 'calm down'. It wouldn't do for him to be in public when he let his mask slip and allowed the exhaustion to show, as he was doing now.

Pushing himself away from the door, he moved towards the desk sitting in the middle of his office. Ratchet glanced over his shoulder at the door, a thoughtful expression breaking through the exhaustion. He almost expected someone to be sneaking up behind him, wished that he had been able to catch whoever had been tailing him from the common room. He stared silently at his reflection before he noticed something odd; he ended up doing a double-take. His back was a distorted reflection in the metal of the door, but it was impossible to mistake what was written there.

The paint was faint in some places, suggesting that the miscreant responsible had pulled back in a hurry, and the letters were wobbly, as though written upside-down, but the bold black words sprayed on backwards were easy to read in the reflective metal of the door.

**THANK YOU**

Ratchet's optics narrowed slightly before relaxing again, an amused peace crossing his face plates. Oh, it wasn't going to be fun to strip the paint from his back, and he was certainly going to give the demon responsible a good threatening, for he had a general idea of the identity of the culprit, but... Shaking his head he smiled, turning back to his original target and the pile of work needing completion.

Yes, that rogue was in for it the next day; Ratchet would dust off his oldest tool just for the occasion. For now, though, even if the methods used of showing it weren't always orthodox, Ratchet was content to know he was always appreciated.

**-------------------------------------------------**

**Silver**


	2. Jazz

**A/N:** This one was actually goin' to be a seperate story from the series, but I changed my mind at the last minute. That, and I couldn't think of an appropriate title. This is one of those few stories that has an attachment of sorts to another story. It was supposed to be a prelude of sorts to B.M.R., but I'm not comfortable with writin' my own OCs, so._

* * *

__I'm glad to hear that you're safe. I have to admit, receiving word from you after so long... you wouldn't be surprised to find it was quite a shock. At first I was afraid that it was someone's poor idea of a joke. I was almost ready to start severing neck cables from heads until I was forcefully informed that it wasn't a trick. You were... truly alive._

_With that out of the way..._

_You __**fragging**__ alley-stinker._

_Do you have any idea how hard it was to find out that, to all extents and purposes, you were _**dead**_? To have some sparkling glitch you've never met come up to you and tell you that, oh by the way, the _Ark_ has crashed and the lives of every mech on board are considered null and void, that the Autobots left on Cybertron wouldn't even consider that maybe you were still alive somewhere?_

_Oh no, of course not. What's the first thing I read after almost having my spark extinguish on me from receiving your note? You going on about how fascinating those organic creatures are, how much ingenuity they possess. Were you built with rusted bolts in place of your microprocessor or something? I don't care if the rest of that... that epistle was semi-explanatory as to why you were going on about something so trivial. You couldn't possibly have put something a little more important? Something more along the lines of 'Sorry if I worried you', 'Everything's in working order', 'Talk to you soon', 'Take care'?_

_No, no. Just... Bah. I don't know whether I'm more incensed at you for being such a, a flaming, Pit-slimed rust-sucker, or more terrified that you'll disappear again, for good. You better be glad you're on a different planet, or I swear you wouldn't be able to tell your axle shaft from your camshaft._

_Don't you ever… _**ever**_ do that to me again. I never want to be that scared. You're all I have left._

_--_

The forest glistened in the early twilight, water droplets left behind by the fast-paced summer storm that had breezed through earlier still clinging forlornly to dark leaves, catching what little rays of light were left in a kaleidoscope of colours. Soft sounds echoed through the underbrush as local nocturnal wildlife began to filter out of their daytime boltholes to forage.

Curled up silently in a mossy hollow, Jazz kept his visor offline, allowing the night-time sounds to wash over him soothingly. Smiling slightly as a family of birds settled down somewhere west-ward, he powered up his visor and turned to gaze at the stars starting to appear, one hand absently tracing the edges of the small circuit board he had found mixed in with his datapads that morning.

"Y'know, I only wrote that note on a whim. Never thought ya'd actually get it, or reply."

He shook his head, a soft laugh sneaking its way from his vocaliser. Primus, he was picking up Red Alert's habit of talking to himself. That just wouldn't do; he'd never hear the end of it from Prowl. Settling himself more comfortably in his hollow, he let his mind drift back to the note.

"Guess that means I'm forgiven, yeah?"

Looking to the stars, he watched them twinkle merrily, almost as though they were holding conversations with each other, keeping secrets from the world at large until they were ready to share them. Jazz continued to search them for a few moments before relaxing again, content with whatever answer they were willing to give him at that moment.  
"Miss you to, sparklette."

* * *

**Silver**


	3. Choices not story

First and foremost, no, this isn't patr of the L.i.B. series.

I need some help in decidin' where to go next. Since before I started writin' up the second story, I've known which characters I've wanted to do for stories three and four. The only problem is that I'm not sure which character should be three, and which should be four. This is where the reviewers come in. It depends on how many people choose which character for the next story. The choices:

Windcharger

Mirage

So, which one should be next? Whichever is chosen will replace this... debate as the third story.


End file.
